Anisa Wilson-Smith | The empty engine: Why STEM/STEAM fails without an SEL Foundation

In the current landscape of Jamaican education, the buzzwords are unmistakable: STEM and STEAM.

As a nation, we are racing to equip our youth with the technical prowess to navigate a digital-first economy. We build labs, invest in robotics, and overhaul mathematics curricula. Yet there is a silent, structural flaw in our approach: we are trying to run a high-performance engine without a cooling system.

The "engine" is STEM. The "cooling system" – and indeed the very fuel that allows for sustained performance – is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).

Without a foundation of emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and collaborative competence, our national push for technical mastery will not only stall – it will burn out.

THE PERSISTENT GAP

STEM subjects are, by their nature, defined by failure. Coding requires debugging; engineering requires iterative prototyping; scientific inquiry requires the rejection of a hundred hypotheses before finding one that sticks.

Research published in Digital Promise (2024) highlights that academic "perseverance" – the ability to stay on track despite setbacks – is not a product of IQ, but of effortful control and self-management. These are core SEL competencies.

When a Jamaican student encounters a complex calculus problem or a failing circuit, it is their emotional resilience, not just their logic, that determines whether they push through or shut down. Without SEL, we are teaching students how to calculate, but not how to cope with the frustration of being wrong.

THE COLLABORATION MYTH

The "A" in STEAM stands for Art, representing the creativity and "human-centered" design required to make technology useful. Modern innovation is rarely a solo act; it is a collaborative symphony.

A meta-analysis by Mahoney, Durlak, and Weissberg (2018) involving over one million students worldwide found that SEL interventions increased academic performance by 11 to 13 percentile points. Why? Because students with high "relationship management" skills can navigate the friction of group work.

In a Jamaican classroom, if students cannot manage conflict or empathise with a peer's perspective, the most advanced robotics kit becomes a source of tension rather than a tool for innovation. We are preparing students for a workforce where, according to the World Economic Forum, emotional intelligence is now a top-10 requisite skill.

COGNITIVE ‘OVERLOAD’ IN THE CLASSROOM

The brain cannot prioritise high-level cognitive functions – like engineering design or complex analysis – when it is in a state of emotional distress.

Neuroscientific research confirms that the prefrontal cortex (the seat of planning and logic) is effectively "hijacked" by the amygdala during times of stress, anxiety, or trauma.

In Jamaica, where many of our students grapple with community violence, economic instability, post-pandemic learning gaps, and now post Hurricane Mellisa learning gaps – their "emotional engines" are already redlining. To ask these students to excel in STEM without providing the SEL tools to regulate their stress is a pedagogical impossibility.

A CALL TO ACTION

As we look toward the 2026 academic year, we must stop viewing SEL as a "soft" add-on or a luxury for the privileged. It is the infrastructure of the intellect.

Life Skills Education Limited has seen firsthand that when schools prioritise Social and Emotional Learning, academic recovery follows. If we want a generation of Jamaican engineers, scientists, and digital artists who can compete on the world stage, we must first ensure they can navigate the world within themselves.

We cannot build a high-tech future on a low-resilience foundation. It is time to put "Life" back into our "Skills".

- Anisa Wilson-Smith is a Lecturer and the CEO of Life Skills Education Limited, a Jamaican firm specializing in trauma-responsive teaching and behavioral management. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com